Scripture: Acts 1:1-11
Sometimes the scriptures speak to you sort of sideways. A case in point is the scripture you heard a few moments ago that describes Jesus’ ascension into heaven. This scripture is the lectionary scripture not for this Sunday but for last Thursday, which was Ascension Day, and which some portions of the Christian church pay attention to as a significant date on the church calendar and which the rest of us pretty much ignore. But whether you pay attention to Ascension Day or not, the scripture reading it’s based on is still there, prominently there, right at the beginning of the Book of Acts. We could ignore this particular scripture too, I suppose, but I prefer not to.
I’ve actually always sort of liked this scripture, but not because of what it says directly. I’m not particularly attached to the story line that says: “After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.” In other words after Jesus rose from the dead he spent forty days living very much as an earthly kind of figure and appearing to the disciples in some kind of bodily form. I’m not particularly attached to that story line, but I do want to point out that what it says he was talking to them about was the kingdom of God. He was not simply saying, “Look, I’m alive, believe in me.” He was talking to his disciples—still talking to them—about the kingdom of God, which I have been emphasizing for the better part of 2009 was central to what Jesus said and did, to who he was. But really for this morning that’s just an aside. I couldn’t resist pointing out that little part of the text because, as I’ve said before, if we make Jesus and his divinity or his messiahship the whole point of Christianity, then we miss the point that was central to Jesus himself, namely the kingdom of God. Christians have too often taken this passage, and many others, as a kind of proof of Jesus’ divine status. Read differently, this passage could suggest that we focus less on the person of Jesus and more on the kingdom of God.
To get back to what I was saying though, the story continues: “When he (Jesus) had said this, as they (the disciples) were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.” And again at the close, a man who has mysteriously appeared dressed in a white robe says, “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way you saw him go.” So far as the straightforward account of what happened is concerned, there are probably several things that get in the way of our relating very well, or at least very easily to this passage. The miraculous part of it, of course, is always a bit of a challenge for many of us moderns. The idea of Jesus not just continuing to live in the hearts of his disciples but actually holding a series of meetings with them after his resurrection and appearing in bodily form and inhabiting this earthly space for a forty day period and then being magically lifted up in the clouds, disappearing right in front of the disciples’ eyes, with the promise of his returning some day in the same way—all of that may at least make us wonder what we’re supposed to make of such a story, and maybe back off from taking it seriously.
Add to that the tendency for this story maybe to make you think of the whole business of the rapture and the “left behind” books and the political movements associated with such things and there may be some serious issues in relating to this passage. It’s not only what the scripture itself says, it’s also the baggage we bring to it that’s the problem.
And rapture or no rapture, we tend, I think, we 21st century people tend to get all hung up on miracles, so that for many people the main question in any scripture that contains an account of miracles becomes the miracle itself. Do I think this really happened? Do I think such things happen in general? Is the Bible all about asking me, to use the phrase from Alice in Wonderland, to believe six impossible things before breakfast? Such questions are natural and there is a place for them, but I believe they are distracting. They keep us from hearing other things the scripture may have to say. If every time we encounter a miracle story in the Bible all we can see is some large, flashing sign that says “MIRACLE”, our reading of scripture will be skewed.
So let me try to tell you some of the reasons why, in spite of all the things that might get in the way, I am attracted to this scripture.
I live in a world where there is most of the time no direct word from the Lord. That is not to say that I live in a non-Christian world, a secular world that doesn’t believe in words from the Lord; that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that as a Christian, I live in a world where there is most of the time no direct word from the Lord. So far as I can tell that is the way God chooses to relate to me. Because that is my reality, the story of Christ’s ascension speaks to me. It says to me that I shouldn’t expect things to be any other way. It doesn’t say that in so many words. You don’t find anything faintly resembling those words in the first chapter of Acts. But it does speak to me indirectly in this way, sideways if you will.
It’s a story for me not only of Christ’s ascension but of Christ’s departure, his departure from earth, his departure from his disciples, and a rather spectacular departure at that. It’s as if the scripture wants to emphasize the point, calling our attention to the leaving of Christ. Of course he doesn’t leave us with nothing. He has some last words in this scripture that he leaves behind. They are partly words of unknowing. “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that God has set,” not for you to know the future or the outcomes of your faith. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” But what does it mean, what will it turn out to mean to be Christ’s witnesses? How does one go about being a witness? And what will the Holy Spirit be wanting us to do? There are some things left here to figure out. And we may want to ask what would Jesus do, and we may even think that we have a pretty good answer that we could support with gospel quotes and all, but we will never be sure, because Jesus won’t be just right there to say, “Yes, that’s right; that’s what I would do” and so that’s what you should do. And of course we have the stories about him and the stories by him and the words of his teachings. We are not without some guidance, some resources to draw on, but they are only that: guidance and resources to draw on. It is up to us how to use those resources, to decide in what ways they will guide us, to figure out how to use them in loving ways, to somehow turn them into a path to follow.
It is an uncertain task. And yet the attitudes and the language of the Christian community often make it seem otherwise. We assume, some of us do, maybe all of us do some of the time, we assume that people of faith are people who have a deep sense of Christ’s presence, a sense of God’s call in their lives, a quiet confidence about what kind of life is consistent with faith and even see a direct connection between our religious convictions and specific decisions we need to make. The stronger your faith is the more those things will be true, that we will have a sure sense of God’s presence, that we will see clearly the path we are to travel. And all that’s true. I don’t want to argue with that. It’s just that it’s also true that we find ourselves sometimes without God in the world, without a clear path forward all laid out for us, without a clear sense of what is right or wrong, better or worse, more or less loving in any given situation. And when we find ourselves in places like these, it is not because our faith is not strong enough; it is not because our faith has somehow failed us or because we have failed to have enough faith. It is all a part of the life of faith. There is no failure involved.
I titled this sermon “divine paradox” because these two apparently opposite ways of thinking about faith are both true. By the way, I have been referring to God and Christ pretty much interchangeably this morning, thinking of Jesus, not so much in any creedal or doctrinal way, but thinking of Jesus as an embodied presence of God in the world and so his departure from the world can be taken as a metaphor for God’s departure from the world. The paradox is that God is both a powerful presence and, if you will, a powerful absence, not only so far as the world at large is concerned but precisely in the lives of people of faith.
I consider the various stories I referred to earlier about the various appearances of Jesus to the disciples after the resurrection and before the ascension, I consider those various stories testimonies to the idea that Jesus is not dead and gone, nor just a memory which will become an increasingly distant memory, but a living presence. His appearances in fact are not just appearances; they are encounters. They speak of Jesus, or of God if you will, as a powerful, living, life-giving, guiding, sustaining presence. I consider the story of the ascension a testimony to a different reality, the reality that God does call us to be witnesses, to be people of faith in world that sometimes feels to be a world without God, who calls us to be people of faith who must find our way in the world when we have precious little to go on, and who therefore know ourselves to be kin to everyone who is trying to find a way in the world with precious little to go on.
Not too long after I graduated from divinity school and was out serving a church, a publication came in the mail. It was one of those things you get as an alumnus, with a list of donors in the back and some news of other graduates. This one included a sermon; it was a divinity school publication after all. It was a sermon by a nun, who had become a theology professor after I left, her name was Ann Carr. The sermon was on this passage.
I remember that printed sermon partly because of what she said but partly because of her approach. She didn’t explain what the scripture said, how we should understand its message, or draw lessons from it that we were supposed to apply. She talked back to the scripture. Now I think I had been talking back to scripture from the time I first started to read it as an adult. I knew you could do that. I just hadn’t been aware of anyone doing it in sermons in my young church life at that point. I think I thought you were supposed to keep such things to yourself. Ann Carr taught me that this was one ok way to interpret scripture, to engage it in conversation.
What she said in her sermon was mostly focused on a verse that I didn’t quote earlier. “While (Jesus) was going and (the disciples) were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven?’” To which Ann Carr replied, and this is a very rough paraphrase of what she said, and she said it more eloquently than I will be able to recapture, but what I remember her saying was something to this effect:
Dear angels, why do you question us about looking off into the sky? I detect a note of judgment there, as though we shouldn’t be looking off into space but paying attention to the world around us. I understand. And I even agree. I know faith is not all about pie in the sky. The world deserves our appreciation and needs our attention. But, dear angels, it is not enough. The world is not enough. Why do we stand looking up into the heavens? Because we need to, Ann Carr said. Because we need to see something that is not yet. Even so far as this world is concerned, we need to see something that is not yet, that is not available in the world around us. Why do we stand looking into the heavens? Because we need to acknowledge our losses when people we love leave (which, of course, is another thing that the ascension is about). So, my angel friends, grant us some grieving time. There is much to grieve about. (I add that we know this all too well on a Memorial Day weekend.) Why do we stand looking into the heavens? Because we also need time for the miracles of our world to sink in. We need time just to stand, in awe, in silence. Grant us then some wonder time…We will get back to work and witnessing soon enough.
I close then with prayers based on dimly remembered words:
Grant us, O God, some grieving time. Grant us, O God, some wonder time.
And this prayer as well:
Grant us, O God, from time to time, (I cannot ask for more) a sure sense of your presence, and at all times, whether we feel most of all your presence or your absence, at all times that we be guided by mercy for one another, and love. Amen.
Jim Bundy
May 24, 2009